I am noticing more and more whilst doing the PG Cert that I am lacking some key study skills. I think this is because I did my degree BEFORE THE INTERNET and because since then I have continued to rely on hand-written notes and hard copies of reading material, for the most part. This suits my learning preferences in that I like the process of writing and of annotating, and I find this helps me to process and remember what I’m reading about.

However, I’m also aware that as we receive and find information more and more online and/or in PDF format, I’m using Adobe to highlight and annotate. I’ve yet to see if this actually works for me when I come to write something and actively use the research. I’m also naturally quite organised in my storing of materials and bookmarking things, but I feel I haven’t done this sufficiently with reading material, or I haven’t considered carefully enough what I might need, so the storage and impending disorganisation is starting to make me feel anxious.

What I realise is (embarrassingly), that despite working in digital learning, I am sadly lacking in independent online study skills. I need some apps for annotating documents, I need to apply my organisational skills to my reading and I also need to work out a way of taking notes, ideas, quotes from various sources without printing out lots of paper, or being tied to more real-life notebooks.

I think part of the problem is that my research skills are also pre-internet. I’m used to looking in the library for the key texts, or journal entries. I haven’t worked out a good way either to find and access the texts that I need or process them through reading and making notes, ‘annotating’, or store them. I have the double-whammy of being antiquated in my experience and yet very post-internet in my expectation that I’ll be able to find what I want, when I want it.

Whilst I’m a bit embarrassed to realise this is the case, I’m also interested that it may give me an insight into student experience at UAL who maybe face similar problems, either being in a similar position to me, or just being younger and having fewer educational experiences to draw on. In my experience supporting students, I find that although they are sometimes very savvy with certain things online, online study and organisational skills don’t tend to feature much.

It makes me see that there is an important world of online study that I haven’t really looked at before. I was aware of it, but I just didn’t really think about why it would be important. I wonder how relevant it is for students at UAL, particularly given the practical nature of a lot of courses. Maybe it contributes to some of the problems students have with more traditional, essay-based units. Certainly I think it’s something we should consider when we are looking at developing digital capability. Prior to this, I was imagining the study skills element in a more limited way, focussing on using Office to store documents, images, etc., rather than more active study. Time to think again.

What am I going to do?

See this post for an update – Some new online study skills!